ST. LOUIS (KSDK) - As you get ready to celebrate the Fourth of July with family and friends, a Marine combat veteran is healing the scars of war.

On May 19, Marine Corporal Joshua Ploetz set off in a canoe from Lake Itasca in Minnesota down the Mississippi River. He expects to arrive in Venice, Louisiana on August 1. But it's what's' happening on that 2,300-mile journey down the Mississippi River that's helping him deal with combat related post-traumatic stress.

Corporal Joshua Ploetz and Ted Kretschmar, a founding member of a group called FOCUS Marines Foundation, sat down with Kay Quinn to discuss Ploetz's one-man canoe journey and the purpose of the foundation.